Shared Darkness

Set in the later Tang dynasty, in 10th century China, Curse of the Golden Flower reunites Hero
and House of Flying Daggers director Zhang Yimou with his longtime
leading lady and the star of some of his best work, Gong Li. Unfolding in
broad, colorful strokes in a lavish, breathtaking and exquisitely designed
world, it’s a dizzied-up, decorative movie of cloak-and-dagger betrayal — part
martial arts epic, part costume drama — that essentially plays out as the
ultimate family squabble.

On the eve of the Chong Yang Festival, the Emperor (Chow Yun
Fat, dialing up the glowering) returns unexpectedly with his second son, Prince
Jai (Jay Chou). His pretext is to celebrate the holiday with his family, but
given the chilled relations between he and the ailing Empress (Gong), this
seems suspicious at best, disingenuous at worst. For many years the Empress and
Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye), her stepson, have been having an illicit affair.
Feeling trapped, Prince Wan dreams of escaping the palace with his secret love
Chan (Li Man, Zhang’s newest casting discovery), the daughter of the loyal Imperial
doctor (Ni Dahong).

Meanwhile, as the faithful, doting Prince Jai grows worried
over his mother’s health, the Imperial doctor and his family are relocated by
the emperor when he senses a looming threat. Attacked by scores of assassins
during their move, Chan and her mother Jiang Shi (Chen Jin) are forced back to
the palace, where their return sets off a chain reaction of dark secrets,
shadowy deceptions and murky plottings. As truth is finally dragged into the
light of a moonlit night, thousands of chrysanthemum blossoms serve as the
trampled, bloody backdrop for a showdown at the Imperial
Palace.

The performances in Curse
of the Golden Flower are steeped in melodrama, matching the movie’s
impressionistic handling of violence, which unfolds in leonine, largely
bloodless, certainly non-gory fashion, all things considered. There’s a
haughty, regal imperiousness to Gong’s Empress — similar to Meryl Streep’s work
in The Devil Wears Prada — even as
she comes to the realization that she’s being poisoned. It’s all fairly entertaining,
but not exactly something that gives one a strong sense of identification or
sympathy, with the Empress or anyone else.

In detail and scope, this surely ranks as one of Zhang’s
most ambitious films. Working with many of his frequent collaborators —
including cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding, production designer Huo Tingxiao, and
Oscar-nominated costume designer Yee Chung Man — Zhang creates a rich,
evocative drama with luminous flourishes of action. If there’s a further knock,
it’s that the pitch of the movie feels a bit too steep, and the setting
constrictive. Though the Emperor and Prince Jai have just returned from abroad
early in the film, there is no sense of the broader world or countryside — this
is a hermetically sealed picture, and its sumptuous settings notwithstanding,
one eventually yearns for a break — a larger canvas and some different colors.

Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, Curse of the
Golden Flower’s transfer is superb, maintaining the detail and color-steadfastness
of every frame. Focus is deep and sharp, contrast is vivid without being overpowering,
and there are no problems whatsoever with grain. DVD special features consist
of two items. First up is a brief making-of featurette that includes interviews
with various cast and crew members, all of whom talk about their experience on
the movie, and in particular working with one another. Costumes and production
design are also afforded some time and explanation. The only other inclusion is
footage from the movie’s Los Angeles
premiere at the 2006 AFI Fest, which features a few short interviews with Zhang
and his two leads. B- (Movie) B- (Disc)

I’m dropping the additional appellation of ownership
bestowed upon National Lampoon, because I can’t for the life of me figure out
what the hell that really means these days. That leaves us with just Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, a movie
whose title references a character which is not at all in the actual film — perhaps
a first.

Penned by David Drew Gallagher (obviously preserving his
prerogative to switch or otherwise condense his name on future credited projects)
and directed by Mort Nathan (a former Golden Girls scribe and, ignominiously
enough, the writer-director behind Boat
Trip), the film is a down-market blend of pretty much exactly the sort of set
piece comedy and very occasional flashing of boobs that one would expect, with
a few moments of glancing amusement thrown in courtesy of some of the personalities.
The film got crucified critically (no surprise), and it washed out at the box
office, where it grossed only $4.2 million to its predecessor’s $21.3 million.
In reality, though, it’s not that bad.
It’s just a slightly-below-average doofus comedy for randy pubescent guys.

If it’s no great shock, it certainly still bears mentioning
that The Rise of Taj sorely misses
the droll presence of original star Ryan Reynolds, who can take a fairly pedestrian
line reading and, through sheer force of will, bend it into something funny.
What we’re left with in the front-and-centering of Kal Penn’s empowered supporting
character from the first film is a genial guide who slogs determinedly through
an overly pat narrative.

Having learned the ways of women from his legendary mentor,
Taj Badalandabad (Penn, above right) sets out for Great
Britain’s Camford
University, to obtain a graduate
degree in something or other. After having the rug of membership pulled from
under him at the snooty, elitist Fox & Hounds fraternity by sexually
compensating rich guy baddie Pip Everett (Dan Percival), Taj sets up shop at
the Cock & Bulls, a haven for misfits and losers. There’s young Irish drunk
Seamus (Glen Barry), silent Simon (Steve Rathman) and nerdy Gethin (Anthony
Cozens), who picked Camford because it offered “the highest nerd per willing
chick ratio” of any nearby university. Then there’s Sadie (Holly Davidson,
above left), a sexually forward tart whose inexplicably salty language (including talk of “a good poke in the low whiskers”) provides
the movie with a bit of spark.

Taj spars with and eventually falls for his junior faculty supervisor,
Charlotte Higginson (Lauren Cohan,
a sort of English Sophia Bush), who also happens to be Pip’s girlfriend. Balsac
the bulldog comes along (eventually literally, as it turns out) from the first
movie, and all of this feeds into a competition, naturally, for the Hastings
Cup — which rewards fraternities through a points system for athletic, academic
and social service project accomplishments. Lessons of self-respect are
eventually imparted, along with plenty of humiliation, ethnic lingo (goron,
raji, beta and haji) and referential bits nipped from other flicks like The Mask of Zorro and Dead Poets Society.

Anchored by an English language 5.1 Dolby surround sound
audio track, The Rise of Taj also
comes with a Spanish language surround sound track, and optional English and
Spanish subtitles. A nice slate of bonus materials complements a DVD whose plastic
Amray case comes with a winkingly saucy half-O-ring that gives the impression of
Taj standing between two nude cover girls. (Pull it down and they’re actually
sporting bikinis.) A three-and-a-half-minute gag reel finds the cast breaking
each other up, and Penn self-deprecatingly criticizing his ability to maintain his
accent. Nine minutes of cast and crew interviews comprise a special making-of
featurette, which solves the mystery of Sadie’s hardened nipples during a
beer-chugging scene (peanut halves stand in nicely) and also devotes time to
Balsac the dog’s prosthetic balls.

Penn, meanwhile, gives viewers a four-minute set tour in
Bucharest (a last-minute production stand-in when budget overruns forced a
split shoot between Romania and the United Kingdom), during which the translation
for “director” in the native tongue is revealed to be “regizor.” Music videos
“Get Steady” and “Heads Will Roll” are also included, and a collection of deleted scenes and an assortment of
other trailers round out this release. To purchase the film, click here. C- (Movie) B (Disc)

History is full of stories that don’t learn in civics class,
because the most widely accepted methods of teaching hold that chronological
memorization and endless, parroting repetition of macro examples are the way to
drill facts into adolescent minds. We are taught by dates, rules and those that
stand on the shoulders of giants, not by exceptions, interconnectedness, galvanizing
events of the day and those that lay groundwork for change.

Percy Lavon Julian represents one such example of a person
passed over by history. He lost his job — Harvard
University withdrew his Ph.D. fellowship,
concerned over donors’ views of an African-American teaching white students — on
the eve of the Great Depression. His house was firebombed. He took on powerful,
entrenched interests in the scientific community and overcame all sorts of obstacles,
both societal and personal, to become a world-class chemist, a self-made
millionaire and a humanitarian. Yet despite all the accomplishments of a
remarkable life, Julian’s story remains largely unknown.

The modest son of a Postal Service worker and teacher, and the
grandson of Alabama slaves,
Julian attended DePauw University
at a time when the college town was still segregated, and broke the color
barrier in American science more than a decade before Jackie Robinson did so in
baseball. A brilliant innovator — he was the holder of more than 130 chemical
patents — Julian discovered a way to turn soybeans into synthetic steroids on
an industrial scale, helping to make drugs like cortisone available to millions
of individuals for whom they were heretofore not an option.

In Percy Julian: Forgotten
Genuis, a special two-hour NOVA documentary presentation starring Tony Award-winning
actor Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Julian’s scientific breakthroughs and gripping
biography are brought to life with vivid period reenactments based on interviews
with dozens of colleagues and relatives, as well as newly opened family
archives. While dramatic reenactments have the cheesy connotation of America’s Most Wanted, other similar criminal
justice shows and thinly produced warfare specials for the History Channel, these
segments are nicely done. The involvement of Julian’s family and the painstaking
research that went into the program assures its veracity, and they’re directed with
a graceful hand by Llewellyn Smith. Courtney B. Vance, meanwhile, narrates the edifying
passages of historical record, and the result is at once educational and
enlightening — a glimpse back in time at the type of figure that helps changes
historical course but rarely gets the credit or warm glow of an appreciative spotlight.

Ever since its launch back in the days of VHS, WGBH Boston
Video has released many critically acclaimed public television programs,
including the Emmy Award-winning The
Miracle of Life, plus bestsellers like The
Elegant Universe, The Jane Eyre Masterpiece
Theatre Collection, Commanding
Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, Evolution and Africans in America. Alongside this letterboxed,
all-region presentation of Percy Julian:
Forgotten Genius, recent releases include The Hidden Epidemic: Heart Disease in America, the very topical Global Warming: What’s Up with the Weather? and Kaboom!, a chronological
history of the history of pyrotechnics, from ninth century China
to 19th century industrialist Alfred Nobel to legendary physicist Robert Oppenheimer.
Percy Julian: Forgotten Genius’ DVD
supplemental materials consist of printable materials for educators. To order
this title or any other DVD release from WGBH Boston Video, phone (800)
949-8670 or visit their eponymous Web site’s
shop by clicking here. B+ (Movie) C
(Disc)